Now, Arsene Wenger’s side have a player on their hands who has been forced to stay and will have to accept a huge economic loss if he doesn’t agree to sign a contract extension.

"You take a Sanchez into the final year of his contract, you sacrifice £60-£70 million income and at the end of the season you will have to buy somebody for that amount of money," Wenger told beIN Sports .

Alexis drew criticism for his negative body language at times and some have suggested that his frustrations could boil over and affect team morale in a crucial domestic campaign for Arsenal.

However, Gunners legend Ray Parlour remains convinced that the forward will give the team everything due to the player’s unrelenting work ethic and passion for the game.

Parlour gives an example of his own experience at Hull City,where he joined the Tigers on a pay-as-you-play deal and trained with Arsenal for most of the week.

"If he scores a hat-trick tomorrow then all things are forgotten very quickly," Parlour told Goal.

"It’s all about performances. When I played for Hull City I used to train with Arsenal Monday to Thursday. It was a bit difficult for the Hull players as they didn't see me until the Friday. It’s all about what you do on the pitch.

"If I’m helping the players to stay in the division then they’re going to welcome me with open arms. I think Sanchez is the same sort of scenario. He’s a character and you know how much hard work he puts into games.

"I think he’ll be exactly the same even though he’s got a year left on his contract. He’s got a bit of personal pride about him and whichever shirt he puts on he’ll give 100 per cent [for the team].

"Maybe that’s one of the reasons they didn’t let him go because if you lose a player who scores 25 goals in the season then that is really hard to replace."

For every optimist there is a cynic and many feel that even if Alexis replicates his scintillating goalscoring form of last season, he risks causing damage to team morale with his negative displays of body language and screaming at team-mates when things go wrong.

Sanchez’s performances for Chile courted further criticism earlier in the week following two straight defeats in which his fiercest critics claimed he had ‘put on weight’ and that his ‘head wasn’t right’.

There can be no doubting that Arsenal have one of the best players in the world on their hands in the peak of his career, but those doubts will remain over his mentality until he starts performing again.

"He might be a warrior in some people's eyes but last season I saw him stand on the left wing for six games, and he didn't bother his backside,” said former Arsenal player Charlie Nicholas.

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“It was concerning for me. My concern was that Arsenal were trying to get him out and he's the difficult one to come back in - his team-mates will start asking whether he's putting it all in or is he camouflaging it."

Memories are short in football and it will only take a few goals and run of games for Alexis to once again endear himself to those supporters, but you can’t help feeling that they may have been better off getting rid of an unhappy player when they had the opportunity.

They don’t have Lemar but the Gunners do have Sanchez. El Nino Maravilla is back and everyone will be watching. It's time for the man himself to deliver.